


share the dark

by zennie



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: F/F, Missing Scene, angsty fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-06
Updated: 2017-05-06
Packaged: 2018-10-28 21:28:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,822
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10839801
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zennie/pseuds/zennie
Summary: Obligatory post-2x19 story. Maggie has trouble sleeping that night, and they talk.





	share the dark

**Author's Note:**

> Somebody posted about how Maggie wasn't comforted by anyone during the Alex episode and it got me thinking. At the end, Alex asking her if she's OK was the first time she got comforted in that episode. Alex would've known how Maggie would've tried to hide what she was feeling as much as possible and refuse to be comforted. It's like Maggie was waiting for Alex to be there because she's still the only one Maggie can turn to and rely on to care for her.
> 
> Title from Missy Higgins song, Nightminds:  
>  _But I will learn to breathe_  
>  _This ugliness you see_  
>  _So we can both be there_  
>  _And we can both share the dark_

The sheets under her fingers felt cold, and Alex’s eyes fluttered open, disoriented for a moment, but the bed was warm, familiar, hers, and her panic receded. In the light muffled by the curtains, Alex saw Maggie’s silhouette, her back to Alex, her arms crossed over her stomach, hugging herself. It was her stance from the DEO medical bay earlier, the one that had prompted Alex to ask if she was okay. Because if Alex knew anything, it was that Maggie was not okay.  
  
Sitting up, Alex shifted to slide her legs on either side of Maggie’s as they hung over the edge of the mattress, wrapping both arms around her shoulders and pulling her into a tight hug. The bare skin of Maggie’s legs was cold, as was her hand as she reached up to run her fingers over Alex’s arm, and Alex wondered how long she had been sitting there, staring at nothing.  
  
“You okay?” she asked, for what felt like the hundredth time, resisting the urge to ask the deeper questions, trying to give Maggie the space and time she needed.  
  
Maggie’s head dipped as she kissed Alex’s arm lightly and snuggled even tighter into Alex’s body. “You remember,’ Maggie began after a quiet sigh and a hard swallow, “when I told you I don’t want to imagine my life without you in it?” Alex nodded her head against Maggie’s shoulder and pressed a soft kiss against her neck. “I think… I think I lost the ability to, you know? It’s like I can’t. I can’t imagine anything without you.”  
  
Maggie drew in a breath and let it out as a long, slow sigh. “You were trying to tell me goodbye, and all I could see was the rest of our lives together.” Alex’s heart ached as Maggie choked back a sob. “I’ve never…” she fumbled, unable to even get the words out. “Not like this.”  
  
“Me either,” Alex whispered, hating the way Maggie shook her head in immediate dismissal. “I know you think nothing stacks up to how I feel about Kara, but, Maggie…” she breathed her girlfriend’s name, and the tension in Maggie’s body eased, just a little, “this, you…. I would die for Kara, but I live for you. You were the reason I fought, the reason I held on.”  
  
“Yeah?” The tremor in Maggie’s voice made Alex’s heart break. How could this woman who meant everything to her think so little of herself?  
  
“Yeah.” Quiet tears dripped from Maggie’s cheeks onto Alex’s arm, and Alex held Maggie as her body trembled, gently kissing her hair. “I’ll always hold on for you.”  
  
Eventually, the tears stopped, and Maggie warmed and relaxed, her body heavy in Alex’s arms, her breath evening out. Alex rested her chin on Maggie’s shoulder and nuzzled against her neck. “I love you, Maggie Sawyer.”  
  
“I love you too. So very much.” Maggie turned her head so Alex could kiss her before she began a slow journey down Alex’s bicep with her lips. All the firsts Alex had yet to have with this woman, and suddenly, she wanted to start them now.  
  
“And, you know, bowls go on the top shelf. In the dishwasher,” Alex clarified. "That way they don't get chipped."  
  
She felt Maggie’s amused smile against her skin as Maggie hmmphed in the middle of a kiss. "That's why they have bowl-sized spaces on the bottom rack, huh? I’ll  have you know, Danvers,” she drawled and Alex could hear her dimpled grin in Maggie’s voice, “I’ve been putting bowls on the bottom rack for years and they’ve never been chipped. Until recently.”  
  
"I don't know what you are referring to."  
  
"It's a mystery. And speaking of mysteries, what kind of a name is Gertrude anyway?”  
  
Alex slapped her shoulder lightly. "Hush, you. The only other dog’s name I could think of was Lassie.”  
  
"Uh huh. There's probably a nerdy explanation for this. Like Gertrude Stein was your favorite poet when you were in college or something." Alex laughed softly and tightened her hug. “Or is it nerdier than that? It is, isn’t it?  
  
Alex relented, like she always did when Maggie teased her. “There’s this biochemist…”  
  
“I knew it!” The squeal of laughter from Maggie filled those last, fearful, empty spaces in Alex, and Alex hoped Maggie felt the same way.  
  
“Well, I guess,” Maggie said with an exaggerated sigh, “Gertrude is better name than Lassie. I bet you want one of those tiny yip-yip dogs.”  
  
Rolling her eyes, Alex nipped at Maggie’s pulse point playfully, not missing the soft catch of Maggie’s breath. “I like huskies.”  
  
“It’s a little hot in National City for a husky, don’t you think? What about a German shepherd? They have cute floppy ears as puppies.”  
  
An image swam into her Alex’s head, and she chuckled. “We could get a Great Dane and see if it grows taller than you.”  
  
“I am not that short!” Maggie punctuated her indignation with an elbow to Alex’s ribs. She started to pull out of Alex’s arms, but Alex held on tightly and Maggie finally settled back down with a huff.  
  
“I bought you a step stool,” Alex pointed out, “so you could reach the top cabinets.”  
  
“You bought a step stool so you didn't have to knock the fire alarm off the ceiling with a broom anymore,” Maggie countered.  
  
“Are you saying I'm a bad cook?”  
  
Maggie laughed. “I'm not saying that, but the contractor pack under your sink is. You know, you can just reset the alarm instead of throwing it away. It's not like they break after they go off once.”  
  
“Just for that, I’m making you dinner tonight,” Alex threatened as she kissed the crown of Maggie’s head. They settled into a comfortable quiet, Alex playing with Maggie’s hair and Maggie running her fingers along Alex’s arm.  
  
“You know, if we’re going to get a puppy, we’ll both have to take care of it. Might be easier if we…” Alex shrugged, suddenly bashful.  
  
“If we what?” Maggie prompted, and Alex hugged her tighter, loving the soft, serious tone in her voice, the tone that says Maggie wants Alex to say the scary thing even though she knows what it is because she wants to hear it from Alex.  
  
“If we move in together.”  
  
“Yeah?”  
  
“Yeah.”  
  
Maggie’s happy sigh was all Alex needed, and she shifted to ease Maggie’s head down into her lap, seeing the darkness and fear finally gone from her eyes. “Your place or mine?” Maggie asked as her fingers traced Alex’s cheek.  
  
“Or a new place? Our place?”  
  
“Our place? I like the sound of that.”  
  
“Just us and a husky—  
  
“—German shepherd!”  
  
“—puppy named Gertrude. Maybe… maybe even a house? A place where I can always come home to you?”  
  
Maggie hummed and nodded her head, and Alex could see the world in that smile. “Just promise me you always will?”  
  
Alex caught Maggie’s hand and breathed a kiss against her palm. “I promise.”  
  
**Bonus** (I hadn’t planned this part, but I had to let Maggie get her revenge for naming the dog Gertrude):  
  
“Trudie!” Maggie called to the fluffy German shepherd puppy as it scampered across the front yard toward her, her ears flopping with every pounce. Because of course they got a German shepherd puppy; there had been no huskies at the rescue, but Maggie had honed in on a shy little pup whose black, expressive eyes were a mirror of her own. Maggie had turned to Alex and tilted her head to the side, and Alex would be damned if the puppy hadn’t done the exact same thing at the same time, one ear flopping across her head. And how could Alex say no to two pairs of entreating eyes?  
  
So here they were, in front of their new house with their new puppy, and Alex’s heart was so full it could burst.  
  
“Trudie!”  
  
“Do you have to call her that?” Alex huffed as she folded her arms across her chest and watched as Maggie played with the puppy. “The other dogs in the doggy daycare are going to make fun of her.”  
  
“You are the one who gave her a ridiculous name,” Maggie reminded her. “I just gave her an equally ridiculous nickname. Isn’t that right, Trudie?” She said the words in a sing-song voice as she slapped her hands on her thighs and talked to the pup, who barked back, and it was the cutest thing Alex had ever seen. “Isn’t that right?”  
  
“At least call her Sarge or Kay or something?” Alex tried one last time. Because of course, Maggie had insisted that they put ‘Sergeant Gertrude K. Sawyer-Danvers of the joint NCPD-FBI Task Force’ on the adoption papers, giving their ridiculously-named puppy an even more ridiculous moniker.  
  
“Nope! And if any other dogs try to make fun of you, you’ll just bop their noses like your mommy, won’t you?” Gertrude woofed excitedly, her tail whipping back-and-forth so quickly it almost overbalanced her.  
  
Picking up the tennis ball, Maggie threw it a few feet and Gertrude ran after it as fast as her short legs would carry her. “You know, babe, now that we have adopted our first…” Maggie began, just as J’onn pulled in the driveway and Kara came bouncing out of the passenger side before he even got the car fully stopped. Winn followed Kara, almost as enthusiastically, leaving J’onn and James to haul the cooler out of the trunk for the barbeque.  
  
“Who said Gertrude is the first?” Alex asked drily as Kara and the puppy chased each other around the tree.  
  
Maggie chuckled and nodded in agreement, unable to debate the truth in that statement. “Now that we are pet parents together, I was thinking that maybe it’s time for another first?”  
  
Alex wrapped an arm around Maggie and hugged her to her side, still watching Kara and Gertrude’s antics. “Of course. Kara! No! Not the…” Her attention returned to Maggie, who had wiggled out of her embrace. “Maggie?”  
  
Maggie extracted something from her pocket and knelt, catching Alex’s hand as she did so. “So what do you say, Danvers? You and me? Because I never wanna stop having firsts with you either.”  
  
Alex’s eyes were impossibly bright as she gazed at the diamond ring, at her beautiful girlfriend. She nodded, unable to form words in the moment, and Maggie’s soft, unsure smile widened into her full, dimpled grin. “Yeah?” she asked to confirm as she hesitated with the ring, ready to slide it onto Alex’s finger.  
  
“Yeah.”  
  
An excited squeal from Kara cut off anything else Alex was going to say, so she just tugged Maggie to her feet and gave her a deep, toe-curling kiss, pleased when Maggie’s eyes were a little glazed when they were done. “A lifetime of firsts,” she promised against Maggie’s lips. “Starting with arguing over where we’re going for our honeymoon?”  
  
Maggie laughed. “Probably.”

**Author's Note:**

> This is for my wife, who was wondering what Maggie was thinking in that moment when she’s standing there in the medbay before Alex spoke to her. Also, there’s bits of us in there.


End file.
